


I Once Shot a Guy For His Sandwich

by lynne_monstr



Category: Leverage, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Cameo by Team Machine and the Leverage team, Crossover, Fights, First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8294083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynne_monstr/pseuds/lynne_monstr
Summary: Eliot and Shaw cross paths when their teams' respective jobs overlap. They don't exactly get along, at first.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my fic-a-day-exercise on tumblr.

“I once shot a guy for his sandwich, you know.”

The woman who’d managed to get the jump on Eliot followed that odd statement with a noisy bite of beef jerky. “Want some?” she asked, waving the snack in his direction.

The jerky’s former owner was sprawled unconscious on the floor at their feet, an empty bottle of beer still clutched in his hand. Eliot didn’t feel too bad for him—the guy was a drug dealer and not a very nice man.

Looking back towards the woman, Eliot winked and wriggled his fingers where they were secured to the armrests of the chair he was sitting in. “Might need you to lend a hand, sweetheart.”

A dark look crossed her face, turning murderous as Eliot amped up his smile.

Silence descended on the room, only broken by the loud sounds of chewing. Disturbingly loud chewing.

Shaw was her name, Eliot knew. The moment she’d shown her face near their target, Hardison hacked her file, classified parts included, and she was proving every bit as good as it said she was.

Unconsciously, Eliot stretched his jaw. It ached in that bone-deep way that said it would be sore for days.

He’d take the ache over the worry that ran like ice water through his veins. Parker would take care of Hardison, he knew, but right now he had no way of knowing for sure if he’d bought them enough time to make it back to safety.

Not for the first time, he cursed the hit that knocked his earbud out during their street brawl earlier. Hardison needed to get on that little flaw in his design. This wasn’t the first time Eliot had lost the thing in a fight and it wasn’t likely going to be the last, no matter how much Hardison bitched about carelessness with his precious computer stuff. Eliot was a hitter; getting hit was in the job description.

Across the room, Shaw leaned forward, pressing her eye to the scope of the sniper rifle perched against the open window of the apartment they were in. Somehow, Eliot got the sense that she was still keeping an eye on him, regardless of that fact that she was facing in the wrong direction from where he was tied to the chair.

He calculated the angles and potential lines of sight. Taking a chance, he gritted his teeth and dislocated his left thumb, schooling his features and his breathing so as not to give away the sudden stab of white hot pain in his hand. There wasn’t much he could do about his ankles, which were bound together but not to the chair itself. Which was a damn shame, because if they were, he could have used the torque to help break the chair to pieces.

Sometimes dealing with other pros sucked.

“What kind of sandwich?” he asked. Shaw stilled and for a second Eliot tensed for a fight, wondering if he overplayed his hand. “You killed a guy for a sandwich,” he prompted. “Must’ve been a damn fine sandwich.”

That got a laugh out of her, and Eliot smiled in return, shaking a lock of hair out of his face and locking away the worry for his teammates as best he could.

“Corned beef on rye.”

Eliot shrugged as best he could in his current position. “I’m more of a turkey and Havarti man myself.”

He couldn’t tell, but by the slight scoffing noise, she was probably rolling her eyes at him.

Before Eliot could use that bit of distraction to make his move, the door to their hideaway exploded inwards in a splinter of wooden doorframe. Without missing a beat, Shaw spun around, drawing a pistol from the small of her back and shooting the first two men in the kneecaps.

A third and fourth man came through the window near where the rifle was perched.

Eliot had already slipped his dislocated hand free in the initial scuffle. Ignoring the flare of pain in his thumb, he grabbed the empty bottle of beer from the floor. A well-placed throw knocked the gun straight from one of the hired thug’s hands.

At the same time, another black-clad man came through the door, arm poised to toss what Eliot recognized as a grenade into the room.

Shaw threw herself at the grenade guy in a full bodycheck, keeping him from detonating it. It left her back exposed to the gunmen at the window. Once of which still had a gun and was taking aim.

“Shaw, down!” Eliot yelled.

She hit the floor without hesitation.

Eliot noticed the slight widening of her eyes at his use of her name but there was no time to gloat at winning that little battle of one-upmanship. Freeing his other arm, he pushed himself off with both feet into a flying tackle towards the window. The two window goons went down easily under his fists. By the time he’d subdued both men, Shaw had secured the guy with the grenade.

The room was clear.

Grabbing a knife from the ankle sheath of the nearest downed thug, Eliot cut his feet loose and stood, assessing the damage. A busted door, five bad guys down, an unconscious drug dealer, and one angry operator with a gun.

Eliot didn’t have to turn all the way around to know Shaw was pointing it at him.

Again.

Her hands were steady, eyes hard as flint as she asked, “How’d you know my name?”

“Seen your file.”

“Rude.”

“What can I say, I’m a bad man.” Eliot flashed her the kind of smile that made most women melt, but only seemed to make this one angrier. “You’re welcome, by the way,” he said, eyes flicking to the downed goons by the window.

She grunted. “I had it under control.” She smiled, all hard lines. “Now, you can get back in that chair, Short Stuff, or I can enjoy making you. Your choice.”

She was standing just far away enough that getting to the gun without being shot would be difficult. Not impossible, though.

“Normally, I’d jump all over that kind of offer, darling—" she twitched at the endearment and it was all the opening Eliot needed. He lunged, knocking the gun away as she fired. The bullet passed between them to lodge into the apartment wall, and the gun clattered to the floor.

Her elbow smashed into his nose and Eliot’s eyes watered. Blinking the pain away, he twisted in her grip, not letting her get enough leverage to toss him over her shoulder. He brought a knee up hard into her stomach, and was rewarded with a grunt of pain and a muffled string of curses at himself and his ancestry.

She pushed him away and they faced each other again.

Then she froze, head cocking like she was listening to something. It was familiar and it tugged at the edge of Eliot’s memories. And then it hit him. She was wearing an earbud. A damn good one too – as good as any of the ones Hardison made— because Eliot hadn’t noticed it before and Eliot noticed everything.

“Eliot Spencer.” She made a face like she smelled something rank and said, “It’s for you.”

Slowly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny device. Eliot recognized it as a second earbud, different than his own but similar in design. It made a lazy arc across the room as she threw it to him.

Eliot studied the tech in his hand, calculating the odds of it actually being a bomb and whether he really wanted to stick it in his ear.

“It’s not a bomb, dumbass.” Shaw rolled her eyes at him. “Apparently your people and my people are playing nice. I’m game if you are.” She smiled. “And anyway, it’d be a shame to put down someone who fights almost as good as me.”

“I was just thinkin’ the same.”

Some of tension left him. If Parker was willing to play ball with Shaw’s team, chances were they were good people. Or at least, not bad people.

He put the earbud in his ear and was relieved to hear Hardison’s voice on the other end. There was another man on the line too; older, American, and with a precise lilt to his voice that Eliot filed away for later analysis. One of Shaw’s people, he assumed, probably her handler.

“Job’s changed, Eliot. If y’all are finished beating each other up, or flirting, or whatever you punchy types do to say hello, we’ve got a new location for you.”

Eliot grunted in acknowledgement, even as Shaw’s nose scrunched up in a way that should have made her seem less dangerous but didn’t. “Flirting?” she spit the word out like a curse. “Ugh, I’d rather kiss Reese.”

“Should I be offended?” Another man’s voice interrupted, lower than the handler’s voice and with an edge of roughness, like he was unused to speaking.

“Well, would you look at that, Eliot. The other scary dude talks just like you.”

Eliot sputtered. “What! Dammit Hardison, if that’s what you think I—you need to get your damn ears checked, man!”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Shaw crack a faint smile at their antics. It returned to its normal scowl when she caught him looking, and she turned away to start disassembling the sniper rifle with the ease of long use. Once it was packed away, she slung it over her shoulder.

“So,” Eliot started as they made their way out of the building, “Those were some nice knee caps.”

“You weren’t so bad with the bottle throwing. A little lame, but not terrible.”

They made their way uptown in friendly silence.


End file.
